Project number: K124858

Central European (CE4) countries share a fairly similar historical legacy and they are all exposed to the same major external economic and political forces. Yet, more recently the pace of their economic development is diverging significantly. Economists, coming from competing schools of thought, agree that innovation activities influence economic performance – e.g. in terms of competitiveness, growth –, and thus the opportunities for improving living standards and quality of life to a noteworthy extent. Data also show major differences of innovation activities in the CE4 countries: for instance the share of innovative firms further increased from a relatively high level (from 30.3% in 2000 to 35.6% in 2012) in the Czech Republic, while decreased from a lower level in Hungary (from 23.4% to 16.4% in the same period). Further, by spending taxpayers’ money, governments can influence the innovation activities of firms, e.g. through subsidies. Therefore it is crucial to understand why and how innovation policy tools are chosen, devised and implemented in these countries, what decision-preparatory methods are used, to what extent stakeholders are involved in setting policies, if and how innovation policies and other ones that also affect innovation processes and performance are orchestrated.
The main questions of this comparative project, therefore, are as follows: to what extent the differences in the CE countries’ innovation performance can explain the differences in the pace and type of their economic development? How innovation policy measures can be made more effective, more fruitful to promote economic development?